I am undertaking an exercise to revive a Service Desk and would like some different opinions.

The desk already has a SM tool and this is functioning adequately. The real issue is structure; Incident turnaround is poor, updates to incidents and customers are almost non existent, details captured poor and all of this done inconsistently.

My goals:
Impliment structure to ensure best levels of service are achieved.
Transparency of data to allow analysis.
Meaningful Incident data.
Consistent approach to Incident Management.
Improved SLA's against Incidents

it sounds to me that the key thing is people. Which means you need to look at knowledge and skills, behavioural norms, morale issues, staffing levels. Some combination of these underlies the problem. Changing structures and procedures will have little effect if the staff are not on-board.

Assuming (and it is normally true) that the staff are of the right caliber for the job, then you need them to play a major role in developing structural and procedural improvements. This might mean education first, so that you and they together can establish improvement goals and work towards them.

People generally work better when they become part of the solution rather than the problem._________________"Method goes far to prevent trouble in business: for it makes the task easy, hinders confusion, saves abundance of time, and instructs those that have business depending, both what to do and what to hope."
William Penn 1644-1718